1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image management apparatus, an image management method, and a computer-readable recording medium that display a medical image acquired by a capsule endoscope introduced into a subject.
2. Description of the Related Art
In examining a subject using a capsule endoscope that is introduced into the subject and captures an image inside a body of the subject, an operation of observing an image group acquired by the capsule endoscope as a pseudo-moving image or a list of still images and selecting those having abnormal findings are performed. This operation is referred to as observation. Normally, the image group captured by the capsule endoscope amounts to about 60,000 images (corresponding to about 8 hours), and thus it takes a very long time to observe all of the images and observing all of these takes a very long time and requires an ability to concentrate.
As functions of a screen (observation screen), which displays such an image group and is provided for observation by a health-care professional (for example, a medical doctor), for example, a function of continuously playing back the image group, a function of adjusting a playback speed, a pause function, a frame advance function, a list display function, and the like are available. Further, as functions of supporting the observation operation by the health-care professional, a function of automatically adjusting the playback speed, an automatic extraction function of automatically extracting images (for example, a red-colored image) with abnormal findings, and the like are known.
In addition, as a technique related to support for the observation, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-205018 discloses adding a priority order to images based on features detected from the images and displaying the images according to the priority order. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-160103 discloses reproducing a state similar to a previous display when a medical image data set of a locus similar to a previously displayed image data set is displayed on a medical image composite observation device. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-149107 discloses associating user information with a display database and storing information of a display format of a display screen for observation set by that user in the order of that display. PCT International Publication No. 2011/013475 discloses recording, with ordering, observation operation data input from an operation unit for an image being played back, and generating and displaying a series of images following the ordering using this observation operation data, such that a user is able to easily check a process of the observation performed in the past by the user or another observer.